


Comforting Touch

by corgiles



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Insecurities, Spoilers for Season Two, slight descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 01:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corgiles/pseuds/corgiles
Summary: An alternate view of the scene in season 2 episode 4 when Todd has his first pararibulitis attack in front of Dirk





	Comforting Touch

**Author's Note:**

> A quick scene that I wrote before episode four aired awhile back and then adjusted to fit. This is my first work for this fandom so sorry for any mistakes. Enjoy!

They were running. The monstrous figure was following close to them even as Dirk scrambled down the taunting house to the door. Todd yanked him forward with a hard pull, grabbing any part he could grab of Dirk to get him away faster. The monster figure stayed at the end of the hall, and the second Dirk looked back, there was a pull in his stomach and he found himself frozen in place as if there was an invisible force captivating him. He felt his limbs begin to feel numb and reality begin to bend around the tunnel. His eyes were beginning to unfocus as tendrils of black smoke began to creep out from underneath the robe that gave the illusion of never touching the floor. The body was not moving, but the smoke became more solid as it reached the bottom of the door. 

The moment Todd pushed him through the doorway despite his protests, Dirk felt an odd calming sensation wash over him. He was at a lost whether the doorway would lead to their deaths or their future, but knowing the decision was already made became a source of solace for those fleeting moments. As they fell back onto harsh concrete, Dirk looked back to the door they had come through when his brain stopped screaming in horror. The sight was no weirder than his life had ever been but it was haunting. The figure disappeared beneath the odd static which quickly faded into the appearance of a normal doorway. If he had to stopped to blink in between each jump of his heart. His hand curled into the grass and gravel of the driveway, the sensation of rocks cutting into his palms reminding him that the universe was mocking him. He tried to regulate his breathing like Farah had taught him earlier that day, but his heart didn’t seem interested in responding to such a trick. He glanced for Todd and his hands desperately tried to dig themselves further into the ground. 

For Todd, it was the sickening crunch that followed the impact that really jump started the inevitable. Terror wracked his hands as they began to vibrate out of his control and he could only stare in horror as an outsider of his own body. There was a second of emptiness that he had come to known before his mind delved into something that twisted his thoughts and feelings into a merciless capture. Suddenly, he was dimly aware he was screaming and gasping for his pills, attempting to communicate with anyone nearby. From the corner of his eye he saw the monster remain within the doorway in the shadows of what was previously there. Dimly he realized the monster had no eyes or facial features but he could have sworn there was a smile ghosting the middle of the head. He clenched his fists harder, dug the tips of his fingernails into his forearm but as his body heated up and coarsed with electricity, his hands were forced back open and his mind wandered away from the techniques he had spent hours teaching himself. Through a wrack of pain, he heard a soothing voice worrying through his cries and a shadow above him. Two quick breaths and one squeeze of his eyes. Three quick breaths and one shock ran through him. He felt his body relax to numbness in relief as it passed. His eyes fluttered close as his consciousness flickered in and out repeatedly, his brain rummaging for answers and for a sense of reality. 

Dirk picked himself off the ground with a cheer but the color drained from his face as he witnessed the slow crash of his friend to the ground. Dirk was taken back but fell over to where Todd convulsed in a scrunched up manner, his knees tucked underneath his elbows and yelling in pain. 

“Todd,” he wheezed as his lungs felt sucker-punched. Dirk hesitated when Todd didn’t respond but his limbs twitched over and over as if something was jolting through him. His hand hovered and he felt Hobbs race from around the house and move around to the other side and look for the pills he had given him earlier. Dirk felt a flare of envy for how detached the sheriff was being, only his furrowed brows and mumbled apologies betraying his worry. 

Dirk spotted the top of the pill bottle in his shirt pocket. The words Todd yelled at him when Amanda had her attack rushed back to him and sent his hand to his chest. Hobbs caught his eye and pointed to the shirt pocket with a nod as Todd curled tighter around himself. Dirk swallowed as he thought on his real knowledge of what to do and how to prevent the attack from furthering. 

There was a pause and he shoved his insecurities back down to where they belonged and where no one would look for them. “Todd,” he began with a gentle forced smile, “Todd, it’s Dirk.” And with that a spew of random strung together sentences caught on the breeze and eased the tension. A familiar bubbling sensation sunk to his gut, and suddenly, Dirk knew. 

He repositioned himself so he was behind Todd and his hands mirrored Todd’s earlier as he drew in a too long breath and clenched down on his arm. It was an attempt to steady what he could not control and a failed show of not the pity Todd expected, but comfort. Shaking eyes stared at him without seeing, those blue eyes that always struck him in his dreams with flashes of electricity. 

Dirk gritted his teeth as if he too was being struck over and over. As his head felt like it was spinning and tightening with a helmet attached, he clenched only harder and desperately and wildly begged the universe to be able to take it all away. The eyes fluttered closed and Todd’s body stopped convulsing, his legs relaxing from their tightened rigor. Dirk held on, however, and held and held. He stared after his friend without true emotion, his chest hollow and closed. The desire to speak and scream and cry left him without a trace and he wished for nothing more than to be able to shrink to a different time and place if only the universe was kind. He knew it wasn't. He was no longer a naive child. No longer disillusioned by the lies that were painted in blood before him. 

He barely noticed their hands were interlocked as he hummed into Todd’s hair. His arms were still shoved underneath Todd’s and he was practically in Dirk’s lap, but his mind felt empty as he simply did what he wished others had done for him and hope for the best. 

Todd became more aware after a few minutes as left over energy made its way through him. His hands dropped from Dirk’s against the other’s wishes and his head felt like cotton as he tried to sit up. He repeated his mantra underneath his breath more confidently this time and a sudden flash of lightning from the corner of eye manifested into a mirage. There was a quick jerk to his gut and bile in his throat, a pain jabbing his side repeatedly, and not for the first time his face twisted with desperation. But Dirk turned around as Todd hunched to relieve the pain and straightened to appear better. The unreadable expression of once kind eyes became a betrayal of the universe. And he looked past those haunted eyes and gasped for a sign. 

“Amanda?”


End file.
